The present invention relates generally to data communications, and particularly to network switch having virtual input queues.
The rapidly increasing popularity of networks such as the Internet has spurred the development of network services such as streaming audio and streaming video. These new services have different latency requirements than conventional network services such as electronic mail and file transfer. New quality of service (QoS) standards require that network devices such as network switches, address these latency requirements. For example, the IEEE 802.1 standard divides network traffic into several classes of service based on sensitivity to transfer latency, and prioritizes these classes of service. The highest class of service is recommended for network control traffic, such as switch-to-switch configuration messages. The remaining classes are recommended for user traffic. The two highest user traffic classes of service are generally reserved for streaming audio and streaming video. Because the ear is more sensitive to missing data than the eye, the highest of the user traffic classes of service is used for streaming audio. The remaining lower classes of service are used for traffic that is less sensitive to transfer latency, such as electronic mail and file transfers.
FIG. 1 shows a simple network 100 in which a network switch 102 connects two devices 104A and 1045. Each of devices 104 can be any network device, such as a computer, a printer, another network switch, or the like. Switch 102 transfers data between devices 104 over channels 106A and 10613, and can also handle an arbitrary number of devices in addition to devices 104. Channels 106 can include fiber optic links, wireline links, wireless links, and the like.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a conventional shared-memory output-queue store-and-forward network switch 200 that can act as switch 102 in network 100 of FIG. 1. Switch 200 has a plurality of ports including ports 202A and 202N. Each port 202 is connected to a channel 204, a queue controller 206 and a memory 208. Each port 202 includes an ingress module 214 that is connected to a channel 204 by a physical layer (PHY) 210 and a media access controller (MAC) 212. Referring to FIG. 2, port 202A includes an ingress module 214A that is connected to channel 204A by a MAC 212A and a PHY 210A, while port 202N includes an ingress module 214N that is connected to channel 204N by a MAC 212N and a PHY 210N. Each port 202 also includes an egress module 216 that is connected to a channel 204 by a MAC 218 and a PHY 220. Referring to FIG. 2, port 202A includes an egress module 216A that is connected to channel 204A by a MAC 218A and a PHY 220A, while port 202N includes an egress module 216N that is connected to channel 204N by a MAC 218N and a PHY 220N.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a conventional process 300 performed by network switch 200. At power-on, queue controller 206 initializes a list of pointers to unused buffers in memory 208 (step 302). A port 202 of switch 200 receives a frame from a channel 204 (step 304). The frame enters the port 202 connected to the channel 204 and traverses the PHY 210 and MAC 2-12 of the port 202 to reach the ingress module 214 of the port 202. Ingress module 214 requests and receives one or more pointers from queue controller 206 (step 306). Ingress module 214 stores the frame at the buffers in memory 208 that are indicated by the received pointers (step 308).
Ingress module 214 then determines to which channel (or channels in the case of a multicast operation) the frame should be sent, according to methods well-known in the relevant arts (step 310). Queue controller 206 sends the selected pointers to the egress modules 216 of the ports connected to the selected channels (step 312). These egress modules 216 then retrieve the frame from the buffers indicated by the pointers (step 314) and send the frame to their respective channels 204 (step 316). These egress modules 216 then release the pointers for use by another incoming frame (step 318). The operation of switch 200 is termed “store-and-forward” because the frame is stored completely in the memory 208 before leaving the switch 200. The store-and-forward operation creates some latency. Because all of the switch ports 202 use the same memory 208, the architecture of switch 202 is termed “shared memory.”
The queue controller 206 performs the switching operation by operating only on the pointers to memory 208. The queue controller 206 does not operate on the frames. If pointers to frames are sent to an egress module 216 faster than that egress module 216 can transmit the frames over its channel 204, the pointers are queued within that port's output queue 216. Because pointers accumulate only at the output side of switch 200, the architecture of switch 200 is also termed “output-queued.” Thus switch 200 has a store-and-forward, shared-memory, output-queued architecture.
In an output-queued switch, the queue controller must enqueue a frame received on a port to all of the output queues selected for that frame before the next frame is completely received on that port. Thus at any time only one complete frame can be present at each input port, while the output queues can be arbitrarily large. Thus the latency of an output-queued switch has two components: ingress latency and egress latency. Ingress latency is the period between the reception of a complete frame at an ingress module and the enqueuing of the pointers to that frame at all of the output queues to which the frame is destined. Egress latency is the period between enqueuing of the pointers to a frame in an output queue of a port and the completion of the transmission of that frame from that port.
Of course, QoS is relevant only when the switch is congested. When the amount of data entering the switch exceeds the amount of data exiting the switch, the output queues fill with pointers to frames waiting to be transmitted. If congestion persists, the memory will eventually fill with frames that have not left the switch. When the memory is full, incoming frames are dropped. When memory is nearly full and free memory buffers are rare, QoS dictates the free buffers be allocated to frames having high classes of service. But when the switch is uncongested, free memory buffers are plentiful, and no preferential treatment of frames is necessary to achieve QoS.
QoS is implemented in an output-queued store-and-forward switch by controlling the overall latency for each frame such that frames having a high class of service experience less latency than frames having lower classes of service. Many conventional solutions exist to reduce egress latency. However, solutions for reducing ingress latency in an output-queued store-and-forward switch either do not exist, or have proven unsatisfactory.
Another feature desirable in network switches is flow control. This feature allows a switch to regulate the amount of inbound data by instructing link partners to cease and resume transmission of data to the network switch. One flow control technique is defined by the IEEE 802.3 standard, which was devised for input-queued switches. In input-queued switches, it is easy to determine which link partner is causing congestion in the switch by simply monitoring the input queue receiving data from that link partner. But in conventional output-queued switches, it is difficult to determine which link partner is causing congestion by monitoring the output queues because it is difficult or impossible to determine the link partner from which the frames in an output queue were received.